Reuse and recycling of many secondary raw materials continues to be low in the EU, while landfill and incineration rates remain high. The uptake and recyclability of secondary raw materials can be hampered by the presence of undesirable contaminants, additives and even substances of concern. The removal of such undesirable substances could improve the purity of the resulting secondary raw material and mitigate potential health and environmental concerns. In addition, the removal of these substances could increase the range of potential recycling and reuse applications for the secondary raw materials.

Given resource constrains, lengthening the lifetime of products can play a major role in moving towards a circular economy. However, products may be designed in a way that adversely affects their lifetime or prevents upgradability. Identification of the factors that cause such premature obsolescence is also important because making products more durable and easier to repair, upgrade or remanufacture can represent a key factor of competitiveness. A longer lifetime for products has the potential to generate new economic activities and offer societal and environmental benefits, while at the same time spurring on innovation in existing business models. An action under Horizon 2020 to prepare an independent testing programme addressing product durability is included in the EU Action Plan for the Circular Economy

CE-SC5-03-2018: Demonstrating systemic urban development for circular and regenerative cities

Cities struggle in their transition to implement a full circular economy model incorporating regenerative practices. There is a clear need for cities to become circular in order to alter urban consumption patterns and value chains, and to stimulate innovation, business opportunities, and job creation in both established and newly created sectors. New, more flexible systemic urban planning instruments enabling the design and implementation of circular urban processes would make urban and peri-urban areas regenerative and facilitate their adaptation to emerging economic, social and environmental challenges.

CE-SC5-04-2019: Building a water-smart economy and society

There is a growing demand for water from various economic activities and increasing stress on natural water sources. To secure water for our society, there is therefore a need to make available alternative water resources of various qualities and which are appropriate for different functions and multiple users, and to better exploit water resources and all the valuable substances that could be obtained through the wastewater treatment and reuse process. However, innovations in this domain remain fragmented and/or only experimented at small scales; testing and deployment in operational environments and at scales suitable for encouraging wider uptake is still missing.

CE-SC5-05-2018: Coordinated approaches to funding and promotion of research and innovation for the circular economy

Authorities throughout the EU continue to fund research and innovation in the field of circular economy at a national or regional level. Programme owners do so on the basis of their own mandates, though doubtlessly to a large extent in accordance with national and European priorities. Nevertheless, fragmentation of scarce resources, difficulties in implementing international synergies without a joint platform and lack of institutionalized outreach throughout Europe all hamper progress towards achieving common EU objectives. Moreover, the progress made in research and innovation underpinning circular economy varies throughout the EU.

CE-SC5-06-2018: New technologies for the enhanced recovery of by-products

Securing the sustainable access to raw materials, including metals, industrial minerals and construction raw materials, and particularly Critical Raw Materials (CRM), is of high importance for the EU economy. There is a need for innovative and sustainable raw materials production solutions at lower TRLs to increase the range and quality of raw materials recovered from primary and secondary resources.

Securing the sustainable access to raw materials, including metals, industrial minerals, wood- and rubber-based, construction and forest-based raw materials, and particularly Critical Raw Materials (CRM), is of high importance for the EU economy. Complex primary and secondary resources contain many different raw materials. Their processing, reuse, recycling and recovery schemes are complex and imply different steps, ranging from collection, logistics, sorting and separation to cleaning, refining and purification of materials. (topic expected to continue in 2020)

CE-SC5-08-2018-2019-2020: Raw materials policy support actions for the circular economy

In order to secure the sustainable access to primary and secondary raw materials, including metals, industrial minerals, construction raw materials, wood, and particularly Critical Raw Materials (CRMs) for the EU economy, there is a need to tackle a number of specific non-technological challenges at local, regional, national, EU and global levels. (topic expected to continue in 2020)

Other support actions for raw materials and circular economy policy (public procurement)

The secretariat supporting the implementation of the European Innovation Partnership (EIP) on Raw Materials. Â This action will ensure constant and high quality support to the European Innovation Partnership (EIP) on Raw Materials. Particularly, it will provide secretariat services to handle the different EIP groups (i.e. High-level Steering Group and Sherpa Group and the meetings of Operational Groups)

Food security, sustainable agriculture and forestry, marine, maritime and inland water research and the bioeconomy

CE-SFS-24-2019: Innovative and citizen-driven food system approaches in cities

The challenge of providing the inhabitants of European cities with affordable, safe, and nutritious food is both urgent and complex. Moreover, the health and wellbeing of EU citizens and consumers are directly affected by the way cities and regions themselves are shaping a sustainable food environment. Research and (open) innovation co-created with citizens are part of broader city-region food system approaches.

Most of the biowaste produced in cities (such as garden and park waste, food and kitchen waste from households, restaurants, caterers and retail premises), as well as sewage sludge from urban wastewater treatment plants are processed into compost and biogas used for energy recovery or even landfilled without fully exploiting in a smart and innovative cascading fashion its potential as feedstock for valuable and precious compounds. New and emerging processing technologies can enable the recycling and valorisation of urban biowaste into higher-value biobased products (e.g. biobased chemicals and plastics, nutrients, human food or animal feed ingredients and proteins), thereby generating significant economic, social and environmental benefits.

CE-SFS-36-2020 - Diversifying farmersâ€™ income through small bio-based concepts

Public policies in China and in several EU Member States have promoted the use of anaerobic digestion to treat organic wastes and to generate renewable energy. This has resulted in the production of considerable volumes of digestate as by-product, which could raise an environmental concern, prove costly and represent an inefficient use of biomass. The most straight-forward option for placing a value on digestate is to use it as an organic fertiliser and soil amender. However digestate is not highly appreciated by farmers as a soil treatment due to its significant shortcomings.

CE-BG-06-2019: Sustainable solutions for bio-based plastics on land and sea

Decoupling of plastics production from fossil feedstock is necessary. In addition to the recycled plastics waste, alternative feedstock such as biomass is part of a more resource-efficient, greenhouse gas emission (GHG) neutral solution. The shift towards biomass-sourced plastics will only make sense in the framework of a circular plastics economy where plastics reuse and recycling are maximised. Reuse and recycling of plastics, particularly for some applications such as packaging, remain very low.

CE-RUR-08-2018-2019-2020: Closing nutrient cycles

The EU depends strongly on external sources for the supply of key fertilisers used in agriculture. Resource depletion and an increasing global demand for mineral fertilisers may, in the long term, lead to price tensions with an impact on food security. Mineral-based fertilisation also poses significant environmental problems, linked e.g. to the amounts of fossil energy needed to produce and transport these fertilisers. At the same time, large amounts of minerals are being dispersed in the environment through a large variety of organic waste streams, resulting in soil and water pollution. Agro-food specialisation has led to regional imbalances: whilst in some regions a nutrient overabundance is causing severe environmental impacts (e.g. nitrate pollution), other are experiencing nutrient deficits. (topic expected to continue in 2020).

To boost the development of a bio-based economy in Europe, there is a need for business models that can be replicated easily in a variety of locations and contexts, with relatively low levels of investment, risk and technical sophistication. A wider range of rural entrepreneurs needs to get involved in the emerging bio-based business sector, including farmers, forest owners, their associations, and small rural business. Local and regional authorities need to do more to support the bio-economy in their respective territories. As a key part of a circular economy, the bioeconomy needs to close loops to make the most efficient possible use of biomass under market and logistical constraints, and to ensure the sustainability of business models.

The bioeconomy could significantly contribute to meeting the EU priorities on growth and climate as well as some of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), if innovative technologies, processes and business models in this domain are developed and deployed. One of the key success factors behind such development and deployment is access to finance.

Secure, Clean and Efficient Energy

CE-SC3-NZE-2-2018: Conversion of captured CO2

Conversion of captured CO2, for example using hydrogen made from renewable energy, to produce fuels is not only a means to replace fossil fuels, but also a promising solution for seasonal energy storage. There are still relevant and significant scientific and technological challenges to be able to exploit the CO2 as a chemical and fuel feedstock in a systematic manner, the main challenge being that the chemical utilisation of CO2 is limited by its low energy content, and the conversion process is highly energy intensive.

Contamination of soils, sediments, ground and surface water caused by waste resulting from human action and leakage into water sources is a serious problem. This pollution contains compounds having toxicity and durability which creates important concerns from the health and environmental viewpoints. Moreover, it represents a significant economic burden for society.

The global market for plastics continues to grow due to their physical properties and benefits such as light weight, reduction of food waste, durability and cost. After being used, plastics should be separated in order to be subject to the most appropriate waste treatment processes. This is increasingly difficult and inefficient due to, for example, consumers' inaccurate identification of the appropriate types of plastics for recycling. Other plastic types, such as polystyrene, can even not be recycled if they have traces of food.

CE-NMBP-24-2018: Catalytic transformation of hydrocarbons (RIA)

Advanced chemical energy conversion, storage and transportation will play a key role in enabling the EU to develop a low-carbon economy and provide more flexibility. As such, increasing the exploitation of natural gas, stranded resources and biogas is creating new opportunities for the utilisation of low cost light alkanes. High value can be added through improved catalytic transformations to C2-C4 olefins, C-C coupling and/or C1 chemistry together with significant impact towards the climate action targets agreed in COP21. The integration of catalysts and process design will be instrumental in creating process improvements and flexibility as well as tackle the global climate challenges.

CE-NMBP-25-2019: Photocatalytic synthesis (RIA)

The efficient storage and utilisation of solar energy in the form of chemicals or chemical energy will play a key role to transform the European industry into a low-carbon economy. In the long term, the focus will be on highly integrated solutions enabling the carbon-neutral production of high-value chemicals or energy, which is crucial to reduce CO2 emissions. The development of integrated processes will require a systems-catalysis approach that includes engineering aspects as small-scale and intermittent operation.

Developing of multifunctional materials based products with smart intrinsic recycling and/or sorting abilities that harmonise with circular economy principles will create a real paradigm shift in the market and a clear benefit for society. It will also help industry to better match the EU environmental targets at the same time as improving their competitiveness.

Non-conventional energy sources, such as microwave, plasma, ultrasound and laser, as well as electrochemical and photochemical processes, have already been applied in process intensification, mainly at lab scale, showing significant improvements in process performance (e.g. improved selectivity, crystal nucleation, reaction speed easing raw material demand) for the benefit of energy efficiency. The processes powered by non-conventional energy sources are suitable for connection to the electricity grid. They allow variable throughputs to better follow market demand and enable leaner production paradigms (e.g. decreased stock, production on demand). Such technologies are suitable for downscaling and continuous processing, where they can also be coupled with real time monitoring allowing a finer control of the transformations.

Energy intensive industries should adapt their production processes and unit operations to increasingly sustainable, but highly fluctuating energy supply. To this end, energy and resource flexibility in the European process industry can be improved through the development of novel processes utilising more efficiently energy streams, heat recovery and raw materials flows. The challenge is to establish synergistic integration at a regional level among different production sectors leading to optimisation of production system as a whole and logistics, especially in terms of the supply of energy and raw materials. This should reduce emissions and environmental impact, while maintaining competitiveness and job security.

CE-SPIRE-04-2019: Efficient integrated downstream processes (IA)

Today, process industry operations for downstream processing represent on average 50-60% of the total capital (CAPEX) and operating costs (OPEX) and they account for up to 45% of the process energy in industrial operations. These high costs for downstream processing are often linked to the inefficiencies in the upstream process, due to low conversion and formation of co-products, by-products and/or impurities. Hybrid processing technologies (including chemical and biochemical steps) can provide major advantages in terms of primary process selectivity and sustainability. However, they have not been widely deployed in industry so far. The development of novel technologies for upstream and downstream unit operations, as well as their better integration, could provide significant resource and energy efficiency gains.

Process industry plants have to be operated for a long time to make their operations viable. They include equipment such as furnaces, reactors, raw materials handling and storage systems which sometimes have a lifetime beyond 30 years. Keeping these facilities up to date from a technological and from regulatory point of view (for instance related to zero waste regulations and to the circular economy) is a major challenge. Even industrial plants which are less than 10 years old, are often not equipped for new or renewable (e.g. biomass) materials and alternative or renewable energy input streams. More generally, this increased variety of inputs along with the need for energy efficiency improvements poses a real challenge and requires technological breakthroughs in the process industry.

Plastics materials are produced mainly from raw materials of fossil origin (e.g. PE, PP, and PET). A variety of bio-based plastic materials are increasingly available. Plastic materials are used in a wide range of applications [â€¦]. The wide use of these materials results in a huge amount of plastic waste. Recycling is essential to reuse plastic waste material and to avoid landfill. This also allows utilising plastics as carbon sinks in an optimal way, before using them for energy recovery at the end of life. A major challenge lies in the development of process technologies, utilising plastic waste as starting material (at least in part). A better use of underexploited resource (plastic waste) for the production of added value products (not restricted to plastics but excluding fuels) and process streams would support the circular economy.